


Overwatch

by bearonthecouch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Post-Ishval War, all-nighters, readjustment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 11:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: “When's the last time you slept?” Chris asks.





	Overwatch

“What's your poison?” the bartender asks, waving her arm toward the assorted bottles of liquor behind her.

Riza shakes her head slowly, fighting the urge to shrink away from this woman's focused attention. The piercing stare and meant-to-be-reassuring smile are deeply unsettling to someone who was raised to avoid people.

Chris Mustang sighs, setting aside the glasses she'd been wiping clean and leaning forward to meet Riza's eyes. “You don't drink?” she asks calmly. There is no judgment in the words.

Riza shrugs. “It's not like I never have. I just don't like the idea of giving up my control of the situation.”

“A woman after my own heart.” Chris fills a glass with water from the tap and sets it in front of the young soldier. Riza looks almost unwilling to accept the gift – she is so fucking _tense_ – but after a few seconds she gives a nod of thanks and sips at the water. “Roy... he's better with you.”

Riza frowns, and spins around on her barstool so she can see Roy, tucked into a corner booth, and very drunk. Getting drunk is the only way he gets any sleep, since his first combat action in Ishval. Riza worries, but she has no right to lecture him. If the only peace he can find is at the bottom of a bottle, at least he's found some method of silencing the haunting voices that are ever-present in their dreams, sounding like screaming children. Riza can't close her eyes without seeing blood-soaked sand and mass graves. And Roy's aunt – the woman who raised him – is looking at her with compassion that she doesn't deserve.

“When's the last time you slept?” Chris asks.

Riza shrugs. She's reminded suddenly – forcefully – of the periods of manic energy when her father didn't sleep at all, for days. Those bursts of creative fury almost always segued into destructive anger and then deep depression. But while it lasted, he'd smile at her, whistle, and sometimes tell her stories about her mother. Of course, that was all before he started taking on apprentices. But even still, Riza has practically always associated all-nighters with comfort and relaxation, a melting away of the rigid rules that otherwise govern her life. And the way she feels now, she probably couldn't sleep even if she wanted to.

Later, when Roy is awake and as sober as he gets, in the early hours of the morning, she'll catch a cat nap, curled up against his body, where he can keep her safe. Until then, she'll keep an eye on him, along with his aunt, in this bar full of Central Command's top brass and the movers-and-shakers of politics in Amestris. Warrant Officer Riza Hawkeye is in over her head just being in the same room with these people. She tries to stay out of their way, within arm's reach of Roy whenever he's awake. Roy's a State Alchemist and wears a Major's bars, and even out of uniform, he acts like it. At least at the beginning of the night, when everyone smiles politely and negotiates backroom deals and trades information and favors and political currency to be cashed in at a later date. Riza watches him and wonders how the shy boy she remembers learned how to move so effortlessly in those circles. When she watches him now, it's easy to believe in the confident young man who stood at her father's grave and swore to use the uniform to make the country better. She can see that dream becoming a reality, even if right now Roy can't. Riza knows his aunt can see it too, though she can also see how close Ishval came to breaking him.

“You're better with him too, you know,” Chris says, as Riza takes another sip of water.

“How would you know?”

“Because I watch the way you take care of him. For you, love and purpose are intertwined. Without him, you'd be totally adrift.” Riza gulps down the rest of her water and tries not to let on how frighteningly accurate this assessment is. “He has that effect on people.”

Riza spins her finger slowly around the rim of her empty glass, and nods. “First time I saw him in Ishval, I shot a sniper off his back.”  
  
“You have my gratitude, then.”

“It was easy. Easier than it should've been. Because it was him.”

By the time she made it to the line, the war was already more won than lost. The State Alchemists had been engaging in coordinated attacks for almost three months at that point, and those assaults efficiently wiped away large chunks of the Ishvalan infrastructure and eradicated hundreds of thousands of civilians. But for all the Alchemists' power, the Amestrian military was in a weakened enough state to call up a nineteen-year-old cadet.

She walked into a wasteland, drenched in death and choked by fire. The day she shot that sniper off Roy and Hughes wasn't the first shot she fired in Ishval, but it was close. She was less than a week out of the Academy, and she still had to think before she pulled the trigger. That night in camp, Hughes practically adopted her as a little sister, and Roy was Roy.

She hasn't seen Hughes since they left the war in different convoys, days apart. Roy hasn't mentioned him, except sometimes when he talks in his sleep.

Chris yells last call, sending a wave of customers over to the bar.

Riza sits on her barstool at the far end and shrinks away from any attention that might fall on her. She keeps one hand on her sidearm. But no one comes close.

And after the bar has finally cleared out, a few of the girls Roy refers to as sisters sit down several barstools away, respecting Riza's body language enough to give her space but chatting and ignoring her obviously enough that it's clear they're looking after her the same way they're looking after Roy. The youngest of them is her age or younger. For just a second, Riza wonders if becoming a whore would have been a better career path than becoming a soldier. She's ashamed by the instant condemnation that flashes through her along with that thought. She's no better than these women. At least they haven't killed anyone.

Part of her wishes she did have some alcohol in front of her, just to give her something to do. Her water glass has already been taken away. _You don't have to babysit me_ , Riza thinks, _I'm fine_. She isn't, but she's under enough scrutiny in the military, where she has to constantly prove that she isn't weak. She doesn't need these women watching her and judging.

Chris Mustang still looks worried, and Riza knows her facade of strength doesn't fool her. “I'll make you some breakfast,” she says. Riza shrugs. It wouldn't be polite to refuse, and she does need to eat. When the eggs and toast and bacon are finished, Riza takes her plate and one for Roy over to the corner booth. He stirs as soon as she sits down next to him, and opens his eyes. And then, he smiles. “Ri.”

She smiles too, and relaxes immediately. “Eat something,” she says to Roy. Instead of reaching for the plate, he puts his arm around her. She scoops up a forkful of scrambled eggs and feeds it to him, which works until he steals the fork from her, insisting that he can feed himself. Riza relaxes against his body and eats her own plate, as soon as she feels calm enough.

When they're done eating, Roy stretches and stands up so that he can carry the dishes back to the kitchen, yawning the entire while. Roy comes out of the kitchen a few moments later, and takes Riza to his childhood bedroom, something he has never done for anyone else. But he lived in Riza's house for nearly four years, so he figures he can return the favor. They curl up together on the bed, on the border between waking and sleeping. They rest together and trust each other, and they have always stuck together through the worst days and lowest points.

Roy rolls over onto his stomach and pushes himself up onto his elbows. Then he leans over and runs his hand through Riza's short hair, massaging her scalp, soothing her with his confident touch. She lets her eyes drift closed. She falls asleep.


End file.
